


Bread and the Encounter

by tjovalboy



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Mild Angst, Plothole Fill, Running into ex friend at a bakery, Tyrus is cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjovalboy/pseuds/tjovalboy
Summary: TJ stops at a bakery before Cyrus's grandmother's shiva, and there, he runs into Lester whom he hasn't talked to since the day of the gun incident a month prior. Tension rises, but he remembers why he was there int he first place.





	Bread and the Encounter

_Done helping my dad. I think I’ll make it._

TJ sent the text to Cyrus while he was four spaces back in line. “Challah,” the bread was called (thanks to quick Google search), and he hoped to leave the bakery today with a warm, respectable bearing in hand to present to Cyrus’s family while they mourned. It was terrible thinking about Cyrus upset about someone so dear to him, and he wanted to do more than he could for him.

Gary’s was packed this Saturday, and the heat from the kitchen wafted throughout the spall space in front of the counter. He was feeling claustrophobic, and a look away from the customers revealed yellow paint scratched and peeling from each wall. It was an older part of downtown Shadyside, and they were known for their challah.

The line wasn’t too long in front of him, and he sent the text to Cyrus so he didn’t worry. His other friends would’ve been there a while, too, but they always liked to bring their drama with them. TJ was in middle school, like the rest of them, and he had gotten himself in his own share of hallway antics. But they usually came with a warning.

“TJ!” said a voice behind him, and he recognized it.

Lester– a little bit taller than him in a thick, opened flannel. It was chilly out, but in TJ’s new black jacket and slicked hair, his look couldn’t compare. Appearance was never Lester’s favorite sport.

“Hey, Lester,” said TJ.

Lester gestured, indicating the line moving, and they followed. Lester shoved his hands in his pockets.

“How’s life been?” TJ broke the silence.

_…since Reed finally followed through with what he’d been bragging about and stole his dad’s gun. Since he got caught and you hung around him anyway. Since we stopped talking a month ago._

“It’s been fine.” Lester looked away often. “Water polo’s next week, and coach has me starting.“

“That’s good. That’s good.” Thought he didn’t know many of the rules, TJ had seen him practice before and he was good. Most of his past friends he only knew because of sports.

The group behind the counter shuffled forward as another customer moved away with their receipt. _Challah with an “h” sound at the beginning_ , he reminded himself.

“I’m off to Cyrus’s after this. There’s a family thing.”

Not that long ago, Reed and Lester teased him about his crush; his only other friend aside from them two. Now, they wouldn’t look up when they could’ve stopped each other in passing at school. Cyrus took him in with his a couple of his own friends, instead, and days he spent lunch alone weren’t too bad.

“That’s not surprising,” said Lester. “I like him. He was nice that one day we met him at the dirt bike tracks.”

 _The dirt bike tracks._ What did he know about Cyrus? More happened that afternoon…much more, and it’s why he and Lester stopped being friends. They were fourteen, and Reed brought a gun.

Tangentially, he asked himself if Cyrus’s family even liked challah.

“Hey, Reed and I aren’t mad that you told.” Lester shifted uncomfortably. “We were probably gonna get caught some day after, if not then.”

“Then why did you do it at all?” God, he didn’t get it! “Reed’s probably out at the park right now with his trash pick-up stick in the middle of January and you both have Metcalf on your backs every day of the week, including Saturday School.” He gritted his teeth. “I already have too many issues on my plate to be worrying about trouble with the law.”

Lester pushed his mop of hair out of his face, and TJ noticed his freckles. Lester was never good at keeping anything maintained and neat. TJ always had to tell him when homework was due and when finals were and what was a “proper gift” for someone. He couldn’t depend on himself.

“TJ, all I’m saying is that you chose to stop hanging out with us. Yeah, Reed’s got community service, but we’re over what happened. We’ve moved on.”

TJ rolled his eyes, making sure he knew he had enough, and turned completely around from him. There was the challah– his only task task there. He didn’t come to the bakery to reason with Lester, and it was his own fault for keeping Reed around. Basketball, and the couple friends he had now, were a step up– and with that, he was moving on, too. There wasn’t any more room for negativity.

The black haired woman with a motorcycle helmet before him finished ordering her croissants, and he stepped up.

“One challah bread, please,” he said, handing him cash and receiving a receipt in return.

“Have a nice evening.”

TJ checked the time, and it was 5:00 already. _Cyrus must be worried_ , he was thinking, and he knew the share of drama his friends must have already brought to the party.

Lester finished paying and he stood around TJ awkwardly where other waited by the front counter. He had that greasy mop on his head and didn’t seem to know where around the bakery to look. The years had passed since they became friends, and TJ liked him, but all to nothing. It sucked, really, that he didn’t have the brains to break it off with Reed, too. Lester was alone at the bakery on a Saturday evening– no Reed around because he was picking up trash at the park. He looked like he just rolled off the couch.

Another look at the boy and he was back in elementary school. TJ, Reed, and Lester were the athlete gang, sometimes choosing the same league team and sometimes deciding to compete against each other. Reed’s jokes were the worst, but TJ laughed- which made Lester laugh- and they wouldn’t stop until their sides hurt more than any ball game injury they’d sustained. They were close even moving to middle school when they got busier, and no one dared to skip lunch with the boys. Each day was a new anecdote, and reminders of old ones they loved.

Yet, that changed. Reed and Lester almost pressured him to break the law, and he would’ve if it wasn’t for Cyrus. He was done, and high school seemed too far away to start wondering if they would be together again then.

Lester stopped typing on his phone and shoved his hands in his pockets again. TJ wondered briefly what he was doing here in the first place; who he was picking up an order for. They both went to Jefferson, yet oddly, this talk hadn’t happened sooner.

“The challah.” Lester turned to him, his face a blank. “Is it for Cyrus?”

TJ put his phone down. _See you soon!_ Cyrus had replied, and for that, he really hoped. “Yeah. it seemed like the polite thing to do,” he said.

He waited, and Lester nodded. “He found me and Reed for a second at the dirt lot while you were looking for your gear. He seemed happy, and he asked if we had ever tried the swings at the playground in Liberty Park.”

_Swings. His and Cyrus’s swings– the day they met._

“He used to be terrified of swinging higher than a foot from the ground,” said Lester. “Then someone helped him.”

Yes, it was TJ, and it wouldn’t have been hard for Lester to assume. He and Cyrus talked about their place, and he wasn’t hiding anything.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, that’s so nice of TJ–’ because it kind of was– And this kid in front of me was the cool, funny kid you hung around with that wasn’t us.”              

  Cyrus wasn’t Reed or Lester, and they were in agreement of that. He was different– better– and in Lester’s words, he made TJ better.                                                            

The late, golden sun seeped through the windows and streaked the floors of the bakery. It was too low to hit TJ’s eyes, but the color illuminated the green shirt he was wearing for Bubbe Rose’s shiva. The smells of warm loaves and pastries warming the kitchen behind the counter swirled through the building, mixing with the loaves of the people that filled every chair and table around them. The line was shortening.

“24!”

TJ unfolded his receipt to check that his number was correct (his special tutoring helped) and stepped behind Lester to grab the challah. It was warm.

“See you, TJ.” Lester put a hand up.

One last time, TJ studied the ragged mop of brown hair that covered Lester’s head. He couldn’t depend on himself– and that’s how it would be with him for now.

“See you, Lester.” TJ nodded at him. He shuffled past the other customers to reach for the glass exit door and step downtown. The evening wind blew at him from behind bringing a shiver to his spine. He was really late, he thought, but the clock on his phone screen told him otherwise and brought out an exhale.

He made his way down the length of the sidewalk, bread warming his hands in its paper bag. Gary’s baked them fresh– or maybe just as fresh as that afternoon. He imagined sitting with Cyrus, laughing, and ripping pieces off to share with the other– like it was something they did together all the time– and they would think it was delicious.

…

_He moved through the familiar hallways of Cyrus’s house, now packed with aunts and uncles. The food was thankfully still left out in the living room, then Cyrus stood._

_“You came.”_

_“Of course I came.”_

 


End file.
